PRESS CONFERENCE ON NOVEL WAYS TO COMBAT POVERTY

“Connectivity is productivity… the digital technologies are marching to the poor,” Iqbal Quadir, co-founder of Grameen Phone, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference today, speaking as part of a panel on novel ways to combat poverty.  “The most important resource is human beings on the ground.  That resource is completely equal to the so-called size of the challenge,” he added.

Mr. Quadir started the Village Phone Programme, in cooperation with Grameen Bank, enabling many poor people -- mostly village women -- to own a phone subscription and retail the phone service to other villagers.  Aside from providing villagers with an income-earning opportunity, the addition of each new telephone in a developing country like Bangladesh added $2,500 to the country’s gross domestic product.

Nicholas Negroponte, Chairman of “One Laptop per Child”, was also part of the panel and said that “it was not about laptops, but education”.  As increasing the number of teachers and training would not be enough in rural areas, his organization aimed to provide inexpensive (approximately $100 each) durable laptops to millions of children in developing countries.  In essence, those laptops were akin to putting textbooks, maps, libraries and news into the hands of impoverished children.

One Laptop per Child was not, in fact, about computer literacy, but rather for children to learn about learning.  “We want children to learn through doing –- children make things: they make music, they communicate with each other.  Laptops teach children to make things,” he said.

Another unique way to eradicate poverty was presented by Professor Pedro Sanchez, Director of the Millennium Villages Project.  The privately funded Project, a community-driven, bottom-up approach developed by experts in both policy and science, strived to empower impoverished African rural communities to accomplish all the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.  There are currently 78 such villages in 12 clusters -- each covering a major agricultural zone of sub-Saharan Africa.

Referring to several countries that had already had success with the Project, he said that 120,000 people now had enough to eat for the first time in their lives.  The Project had “replaced the quiet, acquiescence and despair so often seen in African villages -- that are so poor and hungry -- with hope and dignity”.  Though the initiative was undoubtedly bold, and carried with it an arsenal of “silver bullets” -– such as girls receiving primary education, restoring soil health, malaria nets and even laptops -- the challenge which remained was to scale it up.

Responding to a question about what kind of electricity laptops could run on, Mr. Negroponte pointed out that the laptop ran on human power.  One could crank or pull the machine -– a wall socket was not necessary.  Moreover, when charged, it would last between 12 and 24 hours.

When asked which countries were involved in One Laptop per Child, Mr. Negroponte answered Libya, Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand.  In Libya, all 1.2 million children would have a laptop by July 2008.  As such, it would be the first country where every child had a laptop.

Responding to a question about how to scale up the Millennium Villages Project, Mr. Sanchez said that they were still trying to figure out how, but first there would be a scale-up around particular villages connected to a illennium city nearby.

He added that there had been a change in tone in the donor community.  Although the mood had previously been about sustainability, now it was about how to scale the project up.  He likened the Project to the Marshall Plan after World War II.

A correspondent noted that China was the largest, poorest country in the world.  What opportunities might be available there for Marshall Plans? he asked.   Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Development, and moderator of the panel, said that the Secretary-General had, in fact, challenged the Chinese Government to produce a laptop for $50.  “That would give Mr. Negroponte a run for his money,” he said.

Mr. Negroponte said that he was in China every three weeks, but right now he only dealt with Governments and that had been “tough sledding” in China.

Mr. Quadir followed up by saying that Governments could not be expected to hand over things, and that no Government could function well in a country where citizens did not have a voice.  “Empowerment leaks out,” he added.  “If you can insert technology in a sustainable way… that will make Governments better.”

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For information media • not an official record